The Quarterly Severance Has Become a Product

Three of the largest US firms now run formalised exit programmes on a calendar. The corporate severance event has stopped being a shock and started being an offering. The HR function has spent the past decade learning to package the conversation; the consultancies have spent it pricing the design work. What used to be a quiet conversation in a closed office is now a product, with eligibility criteria, a window, a tier table, and a brand voice. This is the Signal. ## Interpretation When something becomes a product, three things follow. It gets standardised. It gets discounted. And the buyer learns to wait for the next release. The first round of formal severance programmes were generous because they had to clear a population the firm wanted gone. Each subsequent release calibrates to what the previous one cost — and what the talent market just absorbed without flinching. The trend line is unambiguous: the per-head cost of the corporate exit has been dropping in real terms for six straight years. The executive class, accustomed to negotiating its own exit, is now negotiating against a published rate card. ## Integration For the senior executive, the lesson is not that exits will become…